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LETTERS FROM A 
AMERICAN SOLDIER 
• TO HIS FATHER • |i 

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CURTIS WHEELER 

2to.0EOTENAKT OF HELD ARTItiBRY. USR. 





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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Letters from an American Soldier 
to His Father 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/lettersfromameriOOwhee 




Curtis Wheeler 

Second Lieutenant, Field Artillery, 



U. S. R. 



LETTERS FROM 

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

TO HIS FATHER 



By 
CURTIS WHEELER 

Second Lieutenant of Field Artillery, U S. R. 



FRONTISPIECE PORTRAIT OF AUTHOR 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1918 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



MAY I 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOK MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLYN. N, Y. 



X 0^ 



©CI. 7253 

v f c? | 



& 



PEEFATOEY NOTE 

These letters were written with no thought 
in the mind of the writer of their being pub- 
lished. The personal note is obvious in them 
and no attempt has been made to edit it out. 
The editing, in fact, has been of the slightest. 
About all that has been done is to give initials 
in place of names where persons are men- 
tioned by name, to give a heading to each let- 
ter, and to eliminate here and there a per- 
sonal reference that would be blind to the 
reader. Otherwise the letters are just as writ- 
ten — the fresh, spontaneous, unconstrained 
narrative of personal experiences that link 
themselves up closely to a million American 
homes from which boys have gone to prepare 
themselves for similar experiences. 

Lieutenant Wheeler was one of the contin- 
gent selected from the first Plattsburg camp 
to be sent abroad for three months' study, 
close up, of modern warfare. Prior to his 
Plattsburg experience he had spent four 



PREFATORY NOTE 

months on the Texas border in Battery C of 
the First Illinois Field Artillery. Before 
that, while a student at Yale (class of 1911), 
he had joined a troop of cavalry then in 
training in New Haven, maintaining his con- 
nection with it for two years while still pur- 
suing his academic course. 

It is hard at times for parents whose boys 
are called to the service of their country to 
view the situation through the eyes of the 
boys themselves. These letters may help 
them to do so. They are so full of the joy of 
life, the spirit of high adventure, so blithe 
and buoyant, that their gaiety becomes infec- 
tious, and one is inevitably reminded of 
Wordsworth's oft-quoted lines : 

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, 
But to be young was very Heaven." 

E. J. W. 



MEMOKANDUM 

ON THE LETTERS OF LIEUTENANT CURTIS 
WHEELER 

As the officer in charge of the Press Divi- 
sion, A. E. F., which reviews all matter about 
the A. E. F. intended for publication, I have 
read the letters, fourteen in all, with the live- 
liest interest and appreciation. They form a 
message of spirit and cheer from France 
which should be of genuine service. Of 
course, the author will have to comply with 
the regulations about officers writing for pub- 
lication which have been issued by the War 
Department. Frederick Palmer, 

Chief of Press Division, 
I. S. G. S., A. E. F. 

February 10, 1918. 



Letters from an American Soldier 
to His Father 



LETTERS FROM 

AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

TO HIS FATHER 

OFF FOR FRANCE 
Dear Dad: 

I don't suppose you'll get this letter 
for some time but it's rather interesting 
to be able to write you in medias res 
this way. The luck of Fuzz and myself 
still holds. We are at the most interest- 
ing table you can imagine and we sit 
till all hours talking. II includes a 
Peeress, two very pretty girls, a Colo- 
nel, a Captain, a much traveled gentle- 
man on his way to the Lord knows 
where, and us two humble young men. 

The first lady is charming and her 
incidental conversation of events and 
places and personages is enthralling. 
1 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

All the other people have had important 
things to do in the world and are about 
to do still more, and the result is better 
than Galsworthy or Carlyle. We have 
such a good time we stay together quite 
a lot and I haven't gotten to know many 
new people as yet. But there are lots of 
my old friends aboard, and we sit about 
and speculate and take sun baths and 
listen to the band, and it is altogether 
charming. 

I wish I could tell you where we are 
now, or what is going to happen next. 
But the first is forbidden and the second 
I can only guess at even if it too were 
not forbidden. Suffice it to say that no 
company from the beginning of the war 
was ever better taken care of or stood 
better chances of reaching its desti- 
nation. 

Furthermore we eat luxuriously (for 

me) and we sleep well o' nights despite 

the more obvious precautions. We have 

music (Kipling's Broadwood) and 

2 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

pretty girls, and a library and people 
from all over the world to talk to. 
Arnold Bennett, I believe it is, says the 
casual conversation in the smoking 
room of any big liner is worth the whole 
trip to Europe. If that is so, my last 
two days have been worth three or four 
Grand Tours. 

It is crisp and cold outside and the 
mellow golden sunlight of the northern 
latitudes is pouring down upon us and 
the mirror-like green water. Some one 
in the next room is lightly running over 
part of the Peer Gynt suite on the piano, 
and outside the young men are trying 
their shiny yellow field glasses on every- 
thing in sight. Presently I shall go out- 
side, snuggle into a steamer chair and 
hear all about the last ice carnival at 
Ottawa, or who really first entered the 
city of Peking in the Boxer affair, or 
something interesting and recent about 
the Duke of X's last house party. Then 
Fuzz and I will run around the deck in 
3 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

this gorgeous football weather, go 
through a boat drill, study a little 
French, play a little bridge and roll 
blissfully to bed with the prospect of an 
icy salt-water plunge in the morning, 
having eaten another meal reminiscent 
of Cox's Hotel on Jermyn Street. 

So when people talk to you about the 
terrific nervous strain of crossing these 
days and the dreadful hardships "our 
boys" undergo, wave this letter before 
them and read as much of it as the cen- 
sor has allowed to get to you, and I dare 
say that's all of it, and silence them ut- 
terly and forever. For it is of a truth 
that this is so far neither more nor less 
than a super house party and bids fair 
to stay so for some time to come. 

I find that when we get to our destina- 
tion, I shall be meeting some old friends 
who are close associates of my new 
friends and I expect I shall have a great 
many very interesting things to tell you. 
I only wish I knew just how much I 
4 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

shall be permitted to say. The names 
are rather exciting. 

How are you, Daddy dear? Are the 
mountains as gorgeous as ever and do 
you like the Happy Valley just as much? 
I hope you are still up there getting all 
kinds of exercise and enjoying your- 
self as much as I am. If you expect, 
however, to get as much fun out of the 
next few months as I shall, you must go 
some. 

Yours in high spirits, 
Curtis. 



ON THE WAY OVER 

Dear Dad: 

My imagination was always rather 
captivated by the prayer in the Angli- 
can service for "all those who pass upon 
the sea upon their lawful occasions." 
But I never really felt how much it 
meant until it was read this morning by 
the old ship's doctor, as our tall ship 
swayed in the white-crested Atlantic 
rollers. It was altogether a strange and 
rather interesting service. The people 
on their knees swayed back and forth to 
the roll of the ship and the steward at 
the piano slid back and forth on his stool. 

Outside, the life-boats hung out over 
the water creaked an accompaniment, 
and the life-belts piled at the companion- 
way slid a little on the floor every once 
in a while. And we sang three or four 
6 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

of the old hymns about the sea, and it 
all seemed quite right and proper that 
I should be there and that all the others 
should be there. 

I have gotten my sea legs quite nicely 
by now, and although to-day has been a 
bit rough a few friends and I have done 
about everything there is to do, from 
riding the mechanical horse in the gym- 
nasium way down below decks to play- 
ing tennis on the hurricane deck with a 
bit of rope. 

This letter is a bit disconnected be- 
cause in the next room a lot of my 
friends are singing Mandalay, and Gen- 
tlemen Rankers and the Gypsy Trail. 
Those songs have come into their own 
with us. They express so well the feel- 
ings we all have as we go tearing 
through uncertainty on what errands we 
know not. The first wild exhilaration 
that came to us as Fire Island Light 
sank into the sea has settled into some- 
thing steadier and more prosaic. But 
7 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

it has given a lift of enthusiasm to stead- 
ily and surely serve us to the end of our 
various trails. 

The concert occurred last night with 
great eclat. It contained all the usual 
things — songs, dances, monologues, 
humorous gibes at various officers, and 
one serious address by one of the finest 
men in our service. What he is colonel 
of I can not tell you, but I can assure you 
that he will be heard from later. Every- 
body enjoyed the concert, I think, and 
we are going to give another one later 
for the enlisted men as v well as for the 
others. They contributed some of the 
best numbers to this concert, and it is 
only fair. 

I told you how interesting this trip 
promised to be. It is proving to be much 
more than that. I could never have got- 
ten so intimate an idea of Canada and 
of the real folks that make it go any 
other way. A lot of those people, Laur- 
ier, Borden, Lord Strathcona, Lord 
8 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

Moimtstephen, Sam Hughes, and many- 
others are real living figures to me now. 

Talk about empire builders! This 
man Donald Smith, once a barefooted 
Gaelic kid from a little Highland town, 
qualifies as well as any of them. Im- 
agine being a fur company's factor for 
thirty years in the wilderness of The 
Labrador, with one mail a year, and then 
suddenly coming out the owner of the 
Hudson Bay Company and proceeding 
from there with all Canada to work in. 
Fancy having a big share in the devel- 
opment of two transcontinental rail- 
roads, developing whole provinces at a 
whack, building banks where you 
pleased, equipping and sending a regi- 
ment of horse to the Boer War, and end- 
ing up with one of the few really earned 
peerages in the British Empire. 

Stories like these I hear in disconnect- 
ed form at dinner, on deck, at cards and 
in the lounge in the evening. Natural- 
ly I am very much impressed and 
9 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

thrilled. Perhaps it is more the way 
these stories are told than the material 
of them, but anyway I am having a very 
splendid time with it all. 

Lady D is a very remarkable 

woman, and it is worth being sunk to 
know her. She reminds me quite a little 
of Miss Ida Tarbell, except, of course, 
that she is slightly older and has been 
part of more big things upon which to 
base a philosophy of life. In going back 
she is showing the highest kind of pluck. 
Her son was killed at Ypres and his wife 
and son, whom she is leaving behind, are 
absolutely all she has left in the world. 
Aside from whatever risk there may be 
in traveling, she is surely and certainly 
giving her life for wounded Canadians 
in London every day, for the expendi- 
ture of her energy and vitality must be 
terrific. 

I'm not going to talk about any more 
people to-night. There are lots of inter- 
esting ones, and I'll tell you about them 
10 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

in other letters or perhaps I'll save them 
to yarn about to you in three or four 
months. Meanwhile, I think I'll read a 
little Barrie, take a turn about the deck, 
and so to bed. Jove, these walks on 
deck at night! Stars and clouds and 
the heaving waters and the black shapes 
of lightless ships, headed the way of 
many ships before but meaning, I hope, 
more. May they be swift shuttles of an 
empire's loom, weaving a shroud for 
monarchy and tyranny and frightful- 
ness this our poor little world over. 
Good night, 
Curtis. 



NEARING THE DANGER ZONE 
ZONE 
Dear Dad: 

I do wish I could tell you what part of 
the North Atlantic we now inhabit. It 
is certainly most interesting and excit- 
ing. We are gradually getting deeper 
and deeper in the various plans for run- 
ning the blockade. I wish I could tell 
you them, too. 

And the rumors — glorious! After 
the tuppenny rumors of the Mexican 
border, this is like living in The Three 
Musketeers. I have about five prize 
ones which I have collected about the 
good old boat, and two particularly 
dreadful ones of my own. I ran into a 
sort of officer this morning who looked 
a bit jumpy and I handed him the whole 
lot at once. I really didn't realize what 
they would be like all at once, that way — 
12 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

Poe faded to a frazzle. The sort of offi- 
cer hasn't been seen since. 

As I write this letter, two people who 
have been in it the last two years are 
telling each other the most blood-curd- 
ling stories you ever heard. Great stuff ! 
We are getting so we rather wallow in it 
at our table. The girls are much the 
worst. Half of it is in French. It 
sounds a bit more creepy that way. 

My French is coming, too. We have 
French classes every afternoon now, and 
it is surprising how it begins to come 
back. I can go on for an hour of easy 
conversation without cracking particu- 
larly. My French really doesn't worry 
me so much as my American. There are 
so many English people about one gets 
rather in the habit of sliding into their 
accent and their way of talking. I hold 
my compromise Middle West accent as 
a precious possession and I should hate 
awfully to lose it. 

The voyage, for me at least, has been 
13 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

a most glorious experience, and the 
crowd on board are developing all sorts 
of interesting traits. It is not, I must 
say, as good as Plattsburg. I'm begin- 
ning to be sure that that was the pick of 
the country. But everybody here has 
something or other to make him interest- 
ing. By the way, did I tell you that 

crazy cowpuncher Jimmie V is on 

board ? You remember he is from Far- 
go, North Dakota, and lived with us in 
Evanston. He is an aviator with an am- 
bition. He wants to do just one thing; 
he wants to get the Kaiser. I verily be- 
lieve when he finally gets his little one- 
hundred-and-fifty-mile-per-hour S. P. 
A. D. the darned nut is going to head 
straight for Berlin. 

One thing we lack is exercise. We 
have a kind of deck tennis, and the us- 
ual stuff, shuffleboard, etc.; but we all 
really need a good hard workout. There 
is a gym., but it is small and very stuffy 
and not very satisfactory. The thing 
14 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

that saves my life is a salt-water plunge 
bath every morning. That starts the 
circulation, I can tell you. It is rather 
necessary, too, as it is most bitterly cold, 
with snow and everything. 

Beginning to find out where I may go. 
Told you one prospect. Two or three 
others of about the same nature, all 
equally interesting. Charming country, 
each one, but not much excitement. We 
shall see. At all odds, if I have no blood- 
curdling tales to tell, I shall be able to 
describe for you some beautiful parts of 
a beautiful land when I appear on the 
scene this winter. 

Everything will be turned out in a 
minute, so I think I'd better close and 
take my farewell turn about the deck. 
Good old ocean, good old ships, good old 
stars! Three cheers for the long long 
trail! 

Good night, 
Curtis. 



THE FLAMING TRAIL 

Dear Dad: 

This morning was cold and quite clear, 
with a little breeze from the Pole blow- 
ing over the rail. The sun came up a 
flat disk of flame, and as it rose the 
whole East turned slowly from green to 
blue, to pink, to old rose, to flaming red. 
Then it was as if we were headed toward 
a great furnace whose flames stretched 
out towards us, and whose heart opened 
slowly wider and wider at the sight of so 
tall and gallant a ship. 

Cast athwart the red glare of the fur- 
nace, black specks appeared. They 
neared us rapidly until we could see the 
white foam dashing upward from the 
high bows. On they came, lunging to- 
wards us, swift and keen and watchful. 
And as they twisted and turned on the 
high sea running, the great gorgeous 
16 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

East turned the snowy paths behind 
them to lanes of pink and rose. 

There used to be some kind of swift 
hunting dog which hunted in packs, 
questing with their noses up. I thought 
of them and I was glad we were not 
quarry. On the contrary we cheered 
wildly, and they cheered wildly back, 
and then we lunged straight on into the 
flaming door before us, and a new day 
had begun. 

Then I remembered the last land we 
saw, and how we left it. That time it 
was just before sunset, and the land- 
locked harbor was all placid and quiet 
and pink, against the blue hills that en- 
circled it. 

As the evening breeze began to sing 
through the stays, the anchor came slow- 
ly apeak and we bore toward the sea. 
From a little shack on shore floated an 
old faded American flag. As we came 
abreast, a woman in a white skirt and a 
yellow sweater dashed out in front of the 
17 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

house, seized the halliards and dipped 
the little flag. 

The instant it dipped, our ensign 
dipped too, and the band crashed into 
The Star Spangled Banner. Every man 
on the ship came to the salute, facing the 
little flag, and there they stood, statues, 
while the band played and the ship gath- 
ered headway. 

Suddenly we swerved sharply to the 
left and glided by a huge gray monster, 
decks crammed with cheering blue- jack- 
ets. We relaxed for an instant as our 
band ceased, then stiffened into atten- 
tion again as it blared out God Save the 
King. Hardly had this ceased when on 
the other bow loomed up another gray 
shape, and our band swung into The 
Marseillaise. So we saluted America, 
'England and France before we were 
really under way, with the whole shore 
now waving Godspeed. 

Then from the distant ship came the 
notes of their full navy band, and we 
18 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

stood to attention once more to The Star 
Spangled Banner. And the sun, just be- 
fore it sank behind the purple pine-clad 
hills, threw one red ray on the faces and 
lifted right hands of our ship's com- 
pany. Then the music ceased, and we 
turned toward the ship's prow, begin- 
ning to plunge in the olf -shore rollers, 
where before us, on over the curve of 
the black dark East, lay England and 
France. 

But it was when we started our voy- 
age that the East looked black, and this 
is what I remembered as I stood on the 
hurricane deck this morning in my clum- 
sy life-preserver and looked at that in- 
describably gorgeous East. For now 
our way was lighted — none better. I 
think the light of flames is all the light 
anybody can ask for on a trail like ours. 

I wish you were here, Daddy. I am 

going to sleep on deck to-night and I 

know you would enjoy it. It is a bit 

rainy, but we old campaigners don't 

19 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

mind that, do we? Lots better than a 
stuffy cabin, and, besides, I may be the 
first to see land. So you may picture me 
tucked warmly in a steamer chair, cam- 
paign hat over my nose, blissfully 
watching the fat black waves and the 
stars, if any, and then snoring off to 
sleep to the whine of the wind and the 
splatter of the spray along the rail. 
Good night, 

Curtis. 



END OF THE VOYAGE 

Dear P — : 

This voyage has been a very delight- 
ful island of rest and companionship 
in a sea of war. Now that it is ending, 
I am almost sorry to have it so — sorry 
for an ending of the blue-black nights, 
when you never knew what lay beyond 
the frosty stars, and sorry for the lazy, 
sunny days when you yawned and 
stretched like a leopard in the sun. But 
now that is all over and we would not 
miss the next turn in the trail. 

We have, meanwhile, had all that 
made the voyage over and back bully in 
the old days, and added thereto a faint 
hint of the spirit of high adventure al- 
ways present. 

Sometimes you hardly realize it at all. 
There was shuffleboard, and rope quoits 
and deck tennis and bridge and poker. 
21 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

There was the usual concert and the us- 
ual star who baulked at the last minute. 
There was the man who wanted to get 
up a little dance, and the man who want- 
ed to get up a little bet. For hours 
things might be just prosy and content- 
ed and happy. 

But you wore a gun and a life-belt, 
and you were ready to jump at the 
whistle-blast. Every once in a while the 
poker game would cease in the middle of 
a jack-pot, and the Peer Gynt suite 
would end with a crash, and the French 
conversation lesson would stop in the 
middle of the Bon Marche, and you 
would scurry on deck and watch the tos- 
sing, foam-streaked waves. A streak 
of foam may be the wake of a wave, and 
it may not. So we all had plenty of op- 
portunity to use our shiny new glasses. 

The ship's company was a fine lot of 

husky spirits, male and female, from 

stoker to commandant and back. It was 

like Plattsburg over again — the rest- 

22 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

less adventurers of half America, but 
added to them, the restless feet of 
everywhere else— every land and many 
services. I doubt if I shall see as gal- 
lant a company again in a long time. 
And yet I have felt that way so often in 
the last two years. 

Meanwhile I am saying good-by to 
most of them as if they were old friends 
and I never again expected to cross the 
curious delightful roads they are travel- 
ing. But of course I do. 

This morning I woke up in my deck 
chair and beheld, first of all the ship, I 
believe, the purple shores and hills that 
rose majestically one after the other, and 
then vanished in the green Scotch fog 
as we swept down the shrouded sea. 

It was glorious to see this country 
which I love so well first of all in the 
Isles. I remember the last time I saw 
the headlands of Donegal go down into 
the sea I promised myself that, if ever I 
could, I should see that misty west coun- 
23 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

try again. Ireland, Scotland, Skye or 
Coleraine, it is a country to love and to 
go back to. God loves it none the less 
because He is always hiding it from His 
face with shining rain or purple mists. 

So, now, that is the first land to greet 
me, and I am first to see it. It is very 
comforting to know that the wheel of 
Fate is swinging you along if things like 
this are to happen. I take it for a good 
omen. From now on I shall be content, 
knowing that I have only to bide my 
time and let it swing up into view, one 
by one, the friends I love. 

Do tell me when you write, everything 
that is going on at home. How goes 

everything with you, P ? I do wish 

we could sit again on that high shoulder 
of Little Crow and look in rather a 
superior way down on the world. For 
presently I shall be too busy to look at 
anything, and a Second Lieutenant is su- 
perior to no one, not even himself. 
24 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

Give all your family my best and 
here's my best good luck to you. 
Yours ever, 

Curtis. 



FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF FRANCE 

Daddy Dear : 

It is rather too bad, isn't it, that as 
soon as things begin to happen rapid- 
ly one has no time to write? After all 
it is not as bad as it might be, because 
all the more interesting things of which 
I should like to tell you are excluded by 
censorship regulations. It is worse than 
it was because now we are all on honor 
not to put in anything, and I can not 
write as I used to. 

Since writing my last letter the time 
resolves itself at this distance into a 
series of hasty pictures, already slightly 
blurred but likely to stay with me all my 
life. 

There is a dock and a fog, and a 
racket and bustling about, and a cheery 
Staff Colonel, the father of one of the 
26 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

girls on the boat, who brought the at- 
mosphere of big things very close. 

There is a train tearing along through 
pleasant downs and tillages in the slow- 
ly deepening twilight, great black oaks 
on the sky-line, places we knew and loved 
before appearing suddenly in the gloom 
and flashing by. At the towns, groups 
of people, waiting for us to go by, to 
wish us Godspeed. The look in the faces 
of the old people I shall never forget. 
It made me stop and think a minute of 
just what we meant to them over here. 
I shall never have quite the same atti- 
tude of mind my letters on the boat 
showed. 

The next is a cozy little seaport inn 
with one of those funny little sea-coal 
fires; sporting prints on the wall; tea 
and toast racks and bloater ; a bustling, 
red-cheeked, black-eyed landlady and a 
rather tired Major of the Royal Some- 
thing, not to mention a couple of gouty 
veterans of Kipling's India. We sat till 
27 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

way into the night talking of everything 
under the sun, and some day I shall tell 
you of some of those things. 

The next picture is a sunset at sea, 
the boat rolling in a short, choppy swell, 
and strange things afloat on the deep 
and watching us from the shore. It 
was a page out of Wells. We were the 
playthings of giant forces, friendly and 
malign, that we knew not of, and so we 
cuddled on the engine room gratings 
and slept. 

Another seaport town and another 
dawn, the gray light shining on gray 
deserted buildings and gray cobbled 
streets. Over all a slight smell of mould 
and decay; at the corner of a blotched 
plaster wall a figure in a huge dirty raw 
sheepskin coat, with long drooping 
moustaches, a battered helmet, and a 
long, long gun. Cats slinking over the 
cobbles, and far off the rumble of drays. 

That first impression was not wholly 
right. Later there were gaiety, and red 
28 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

wine, and laughter, and couples stroll- 
ing in the twilight. There were shows 
and stores and people shopping and tak- 
ing their ease in their inn. But I shall 
never forget that first impression. 

Have you ever had some one call you 
up in quite a cheery voice and ask you 
to drop around and see him as soon as 
you could ? But when you got there, one 
look in his eyes told you that something 
was very wrong indeed, and you felt 
very glad you had hurried over and se- 
renely confident you could straighten 
him out? Well- 
But, as I said, that first impression 
later was modified greatly. I have 
talked with many people, at first hesi- 
tantly and awkwardly, later more and 
more surely, and I can close my eyes and 
see many of them now. 

There was a little English Lieutenant 

with whom I had tiffin and with whose 

help I suddenly appeared where I was 

most needed with six motor lorries. We 

29 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

talked of everything from Harrow to 
Andover, and I hope I shall see him 
again. I liked the way he ordered Maj- 
ors about, and he liked my command of 
taxicab French. 

There was a little young lady in black, 
with a wonderfully trimmed poodle, 
named Piou Piou, who slept against my 
shoulder one rather long night. We 
talked about a good many things and 
Piou Piou was very much interested and 
nodded his head approvingly, but the 
rest of the compartment snored. Her 
father was a General somewhere, but 
whether she was somebody's widow or 
somebody's sister, I was afraid to ask. 
My grammar does not permit of very 
much tact. 

Here I must add two pictures. This 
is a sunny Sunday morning and I am 
sitting outdoors at a very famous little 
iron table. It is on a certain corner 
which most people agree is the corner of 
the known world. But it is not the 
30 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

world that Mommy and you and I knew 
before. The cobbles still shine in the 
sunshine, and the boys whistle their 
newspapers down the Street of Peace. 
But it is a different street now. In the 
old days, at a ball in America, they said 
the contrasts were good because the 
women wore gaily colored clothes and 
the men wore black. On the Street of 
Peace, with its closed jewelry shops, 
the men wear uniforms of all nations 
on earth, and the contrast is reversed. 

Another picture I want you to see is 
a little fiacre jingling up what to many 
Americans have seemed really Elysian 
fields. The sun shines on the people and 
the carriages and the fat green trees and 
fields. You could look up at the great 
arch that none but soldiers may enter 
and swear this was 1913. 

But when you look closely at the peo- 
ple you may see clearly that these are 
Elysian fields in a different sense. For 
some are like the ghosts of what they 
31 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

were, or were commonly supposed to be, 
before. And beside others walk, almost 
visibly, the spirits of those who have 
left Messines or Vimy or the Bois le 
Pretre for their own Elysian fields back 
home. The people so accompanied wear 
black, but they wear it very proudly and 
they look much the happiest. They smile 
and laugh and play with the children; 
but the rest, for some reason, apparent- 
ly can not. 

I must tell you of more people. There 
was a very bourgeois family, with bas- 
kets and two round-eyed husky daugh- 
ters and an honest provincial accent, 
who filled another compartment on an- 
other train to overflowing and with 
whom young Daniel W and I con- 
versed happily for hours. They wanted 
to know everything in the world, and 
they were very simple and naive and 
they all talked at once. They liked us 
very much, and were greatly surprised 
thereat, and said so ; and if we had trav- 
32 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

eled further many kilos, we should in- 
fallibly have been married to the two 
round-eyed daughters who had previous- 
ly supposed all Americans wore scalp- 
locks and tomahawks. 

There were two officers in the heavy 
artillery with whom we dined in a din- 
ing car. And they spoke with love and 
pride of their work and their men and 
their machines. And we also talked of 
many things as the flat rich land slid 
past. They drank our wine and we 
smoked their cigarettes and they said 
with many gestures, as they left the 
train, that we are all entirely brothers. 

Then there was another General's 
daughter, an older one this time, with a 
husband at the front, who nursed men 
under shrapnel, and spoke Russian and 
even English. She had a very imperi- 
ous way with her and a high-bridged 
nose. And she talked frankly about 
everything, now in French, now in Eng- 
lish, and occasionally in Russian, though 
33 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

I believe she used the latter tongue main- 
ly for swearing. She had a humble but- 
ler and a humble maid with her and 
they prattled freely whenever she chose 
to read. She w r as a very interesting 
young woman and I hope the son whom 
she frankly and confidently expects soon 
to have is as capable as his mother. He 
will infallibly become marshal long be- 
fore the end. 

Another picture : — In a crowded rail- 
way station, a refined high-bred little old 
lady dressed as a Mother Superior, face 
cut like a cameo, a sacred expression in 
her clear eyes, and two huge bundles at 
her feet. For some unknown reason she 
appealed to me and I got her two seats 
in an already packed compartment and 
we fell to talking of America. Her 
ideas of it were interesting She had 
nursed in the war of 1870 and was now 
going to a hospital somewhere. A very 
interesting woman, naive and simple in 
many ways, but with a certain native 
34 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

shrewdness and lots of humor and com- 
mon sense. In the intervals of handling 
a detachment on the train I had lots of 
opportunity to talk to her. 

Then there were two subalterns of the 
Chasseurs Alpins, with clear blue eyes 
and weather-beaten faces — short, stocky 
men with bursting calves and shoulders 
and thick chests. Their talk and their 
manner was different from the regular 
run of officers of whom I have met so 
many, and they merit, I think, the name 
of their corps— diables bleus. 

I shall now describe you a school and 
bring my letter to a close. Imagine, if 
you please, the warm sunlight flooding 
down upon square gray buildings upon 
whose roofs pigeons sit and preen them- 
selves and babble all day long. From 
the stables comes the peaceful sound of 
horses munching hay and stamping in 
their stalls. Through the shining white 
courtyard goes an old soldier in the red 
and blue of before the war, his uniform 
35 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

a pleasing spot of faded color against 
the gray lichened wall. 

He passes out underneath a wrought- 
iron gate which bears the words "Hon- 
neur et Patrie" and the crossed flags of 
France and America. A great many- 
men in that uniform have gone out of 
that gate, and on the wall close up to the 
mossy tiled roof is a tablet. It bears a 
date of long, long ago and beneath it 
the names of men to whom also the in- 
scription on the wall has meant glory 
and death. 

Gaily clad officers in the uniform of a 
republic pass in and out of the buildings. 
But to us from another republic there 
still seems to brood over them and the 
place in which we shall live the spirit of 
a little corporal and the guns of Auster- 
litz. 

So here you may leave me, busy and 
happy and well, with boys I have known 
about me and something big to work for. 
Your son, 

Curtis. 
36 



A DREAM COME TRUE 

Dear Daddy: 

It is rather strange to keep writing; 
into the empty air this way. I haven't 
the slightest idea whether or not you 
have received any of my letters or, if 
you have, how much of them you have 
received. For my part I have heard no 
word from any one in the States since 
I left New York more than a month 
ago. However I can not help but assume 
that all goes well, because it goes so well 
v/ith me here. 

For me it is a dream come true. I 
have health, wealth, work and, gd va 
sans dire, happiness. 

Health because all the little things 
that go to make it up are perfect. Every 
new thing that happens, whether it be 
heat, cold, rain, fog, mud or just plain 
weather agrees with me just a little 
37 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

more than the last thing. If I ride all 
day, I am sure I should like to do that 
all my life. I have a horse who sympa- 
thizes with me and acts like a kid all 
over the lot. He has a sense of humor, 
and when he has done some particular- 
ly unaccountable thing, even for him, 
I can feel him laughing about it long 
afterwards. 

If, on the other hand, I walk all day, 
or work in the shop, I come in with 
a Homeric appetite, eat myself into a 
state of anaconda-like somnolence, light 
a pipe and je m'en fiche, or, as the poilus 
say, je m'en fou about anything and 
everything. 

If I spend the whole day boning on 
something, I arrive at nightfall with a 
pleasing mental tiredness, a desire to 
wander about this very pleasant 
country-side in the cool of the evening 
and then sleep like the drinking of the 
heroes of old, deep and long and loud. 
One also gets, in spite of the way we are 
38 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

often sat upon by Lieutenants and Gen- 
erals alike, the lordliest, laziest con- 
tempt for the poor devils we left behind 
at Plattsburg, et d'ailleurs, who will 
have this work all to do six months or 
sometime from now. This, while not 
wholesome, perhaps, is very contenting. 
And one needs contentment when one is 
driven as we are driven, and has so 
very much to learn de nouveau. 

I understand now the feeling of the 
French Capitain d'Artillerie who was 
kept in the States a month or two over- 
time on one of the missions, and who 
despaired because now he was so far 
out of date. Me, I have learned to 
shoot with a bow and arrow, and now 
it is necessary that I learn to handle a 
Winchester. 

Be that as it may, you may be sure 
that I am very busy and very interested 
as the new things we must do and be 
slowly unfold themselves. 

I said I am healthy; my weight is 
39 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

slowly going up and goodness knows 
where it will end. Everything I own 
now is tight to bursting. If I could 
stop eating, perhaps it would be all 
right, but when I see food I go wild. 

I also said I was wealthy. Pay-day 
has finally come for us, and my money 
in French looks like a lot. Also a franc 
here turns just as many wheels as a 
dollar in the United States. Neverthe- 
less equipment costs a great deal and I 
find there is still some for me to get. 
Thank Heaven, I don't have to buy more 
text-books; no one has time to write 
any. 

For happiness, in addition to my 
health, wealth, and work, I have new 
sights, new sounds, new tastes, and 
another language to play with. For 
instance, I have talked practically noth- 
ing else all day to-day and I sometimes 
actually think in French constructions 
instead of my own. 

Lord love the people of this sunny 
40 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

land! They are so cheerful, so busy, 
so pleasant and thoughtful, through 
everything that could have happened 
to Pharaoh or Job. They always have 
time to stop and tell you how brave 
you are, or how gentil you are, or how 
perfect your accent is getting. They 
are always willing to help you straighten 
out anything and they never tire of 
explaining a thing to you, no matter 
how complex. Sometimes they carry 
it almost too far. I have seen a whole 
village stop work for the day and start 
in to explain something en masse. That 
is a bit embarrassing, but I find a good 
wide grin will get you almost any- 
where. 

This afternoon Warren R- and 

I got off and rode to a certain famous 
town. We wandered about the queer 
crooked streets till dusk, had dinner 
at the hotel, at a long table at which 
every one discussed everything in the 
world, and smoked cigarettes, and 
41 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

sipped cafe in the hall, with more dis- 
cussion. 

Then we went out to buy something 
or other, got lost in the dark and 
wandered for an hour. I remember par- 
ticularly one crooked cobbled street 
which led up a steep hill. There is one 
pale street light at the foot and one 
half-way up. The latter was hung from 
a wrought iron bracket and lighted a 
beautifully carved door, above which 
was a coat of arms. To the right, the 
black winding alley with the black 
houses frowning down upon either side. 
To the left, the black roofs of the sleep- 
ing town. It needed only that the door 
should open and close with a crash 
and there, sword gleaming in his hand, 
plumed hat awry, should stand D'Arta- 
gnan crying "Qui demande tin Mousque- 
taire du roiV So from the middle of 
the seventeenth century I send you my 
very best, Daddy dear. 

Yours, 

Curtis. 
42 



IN A FRENCH ARTILLERY SCHOOL 

Dear P— : 

It is getting rather late, and my 
bunkie, like the old soldier he is, has 
turned in. I think I will write you a 
little note and censor a batch of sol- 
diers' letters before I do the same. 

I wish you could see my cozy little 
quarters as I sit here writing. I have 
a cheerful little stove which roars it- 
self red hot and then roars itself com- 
pletely out if not continually watched. 
The stoker keeps bringing in wood 
(most of it wet), but the little stove 
is insatiable. 

Then I have many nails on which to 
hang things, and as I sit here I am 
completely encircled by them. A 
curious looking lot they are, too. There 
is a canteen, a pair of very dilapidated 
saddle-bags, and a toilet kit, and a nose- 
43 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

bag and a very muddy trench coat, and a 
Sam Browne belt with various things 
ingeniously tied to it, and a pistol belt, 
and a woolly coat, and various other 
junk. 

Come to think of it, I don't believe 
I wear a single thing that we wore in 
New York as new officers. Everything 
is different. We have high laced boots 
with broad splay toes, and thick baggy 
woolen breeches, and camel's hair 
sweaters and chamois sleeve waistcoats. 
Even our headgear is different, 

And my! how much more comfort- 
able it all is ! I don't believe I shall ever 
be able to wear ordinary civilian clothes 
again, or a regular uniform. We go 
blessedly light on the formal stuff here. 

We have all more or less caught our 
breath after the remarkable change in 
our military careers, and are getting 
pretty well shaken down into our 
various jobs. That there were several 
of us helped a lot, and everybody has 
44 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

been very good indeed to us. It still 
seems almost a dream, but it is rapidly- 
becoming a reality. Quite a reality. 

I wish I could tell you about the 
various things I have had to do. And 
I thought I knew what a soldier had 
to do. My word, they are almost as 
extraordinary as my life between the 
boat and here. Well, I'll be able to 
tell it all to you some day, only, if they 
keep piling up this way, it will take 
some time. 

Yesterday we were in a very old, old 
town and we saw many things which 
would identify it and upon which the 
censor with his shears would descend. 
But there was one thing which will not 
identify and which I may describe to 
you. That was a very beautiful church. 

We went in during Mass and watched 
it through. It was my first experience 
of this kind and I shall not forget it. 
The sonorous Latin chant, beginning 
way off and ending with a grumble of 
45 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

responses clear across the nave to us; 
the light filtered through priceless 
stained glass, on golden ornaments and 
white and scarlet robes; the keenly- 
chiseled face of the Cardinal and the 
shining heads of the altar boys, all 
formed a glorious picture. It stood out 
against the great background of the 
congregation like some gem against a 
background of velvet. It was an old, 
old jewel with a setting of new, new 
black. 

We waited while the procession filed 
out, standing at attention. The old 
beadle, with his three-cornered hat and 
his tail coat, limped as he went along 
and at his breast was a speck of red 
ribbon. As the old Cardinal came by 
us, blessing the heads of the children, 
he looked over, bowed gravely and then 
flashed us a smile. I think he was very, 
very tired; but he smiled, it seemed to 
me, hopefully. At least I like to think 
so. 

46 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

I like to think I know France a little 
better and I think she is very much 
worth what we are trying to give her, 
I am rather glad that every night we 
stand out at the front of our companies 
and batteries and hold the same salute 
for The Marseillaise that we hold 
through The Star Spangled Banner. 

Now I must censor those letters 
(bless them for the queer little dramas 
they unfold) and get to bed. For at 
dawn my orderly will be waiting with 
my crazy ambitious horse and I will be 
off for another day of wild surprises, 
The orderly, by the way, is a fresh, 
frank-faced country boy from Iowa and 
apparently his great ambition in life is 
to get that horse all to himself in about 
a thousand miles of open country. 

So, for the present, good-by and 
good luck. 

Yours, 
Curtis. 



WITH THE FIFTH FIELD 
ARTILLERY 

Dear Dad: 

It is a glorious, clear, cold night, with 
the tang of the Berkshire hills in the 
air. A moon is shining on the valley- 
spread out before us, turning the low- 
lands into shimmering lakes of pearl and 
grey. 

My bunkie and I have been standing 
on the porch of the "Mess des Officiers," 
listening to our band play Wagner and 
Verdi, and all the rest. Now we are 
sitting on our locker trunks by a cozy 
little red hot stove, writing away to 
beat the cars. 

It appears that my schooling is not to 
be all in one place, and that we are to 
be given an opportunity to learn many 
things they haven't yet found time to put 
in books. 

48 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

For my life, it is quiet, methodical, 
and not particularly exciting. Every 
morning at seven my mounted orderly 
brings a great big, coal-black mare 
around to my door, and we go smashing 
out across the valley for a long busy 
morning out of doors. 

I come back, hungry as a lion, to a 
mess crowded with enthusiasm and good 
spirits, and talk of our various jobs 
of the morning. After lunch, we get 
together for some more talk, and then 
off again. There are lectures, and drills, 
and lots of study, in addition to the 
regular military duties that devolve 
upon us. In other words, we are stu- 
dents and executives at the same time, 
and the combination is wonderful. I 
can truthfully say that, aside from the 
fact of not hearing from you, I have 
never been happier in my life. 

The associations here are wonderful, 
as fine a lot of men as I have ever known, 
and they have been very fine about mak- 
49 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

ing us feel at home. Concerning the 
regiment itself, I don't need to talk. 
You have heard me rave about it a good 
many times at home, I know. My being 
with it, no matter for how long, is a 
dream come true. 

You know as well as I do that a regi- 
ment is a complete little world in itself, 
with its base and outliers and all the 
rest. I could ask for no better micro- 
cosmos in which to live than the one I at 
present inhabit. I am studying exactly 
what I came over here to study, and 
in exactly the way I wanted to study 
it. To say that my opportunities are 
exceptional is putting it very mildly. It 
just happened that the thousand-to-one 
off chance came true, and I am a very 
lucky boy. 

Fuzz is another of my many, many 
bunkies of the past. I had hoped that 
we would stick together, but of course 
lightning can't be expected to strike 
twice in the same place. He also is 
50 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

very happy and very busy, and probably 
learning much more theory than I. 
When we change places, he may be bet- 
ter off than I; but I'm content, enor- 
mously content, at present. 

My present bunkie, Henry P , 

is a Tennessee mountaineer with whom 
I got into a terrific row over a lot of 
motor trucks, one rainy dawn way back 
yonder. We both handled the situation 
so well that we have been pals ever since. 
He is a lean, weather-beaten type of 
the kind Remington used to do. He 
used to be color sergeant of the Sixth 
(the old horse artillery) and was com- 
missioned First Lieutenant last spring. 

He is weak on mathematics and book- 
larnin' generally, and I coach him. In 
return I get all the old army tricks he 
has learned in fifteen years' service as 
caisson corporal and chief of section 
and stable sergeant and the Lord knows 
what all. You couldn't ask for a better 
combination than that, could you? He 
51 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

knows all the old officers in the service, 
not to mention the non-coms, and has 
been through the mounted service school 
at Fort Riley. 

On the other hand, I seem to know 
half the new officers, and I also know 
French. My French deserves a para- 
graph all to itself. It has never failed 
me yet. It goes deeper than the lan- 
guage; I get along beautifully with the 
people themselves. I wish I could tell 
you of all the delightful experiences 1 
have had and all the charming towns I 
have seen already. 

But that will have to wait till another 
letter or until I get back home to tell 
other people what I have learned. I've 
learned a lot. Meanwhile I shall have 
to censor a batch of letters and maybe 

write one to P , and it grows late. 

That is for me it is late — nine o'clock. 

Now, could you ask for better news 
of me, Daddy, than this letter holds? 
Only send me good news of yourself, 
52 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

bless your heart, and my happiness will 
be complete. 

I was thinking to-day of our motor 
trips to Washington and Placid and 
what a good time we had together. 
We've had some pretty good times to- 
gether, haven't we, we and Mommy? I 
often think of Mommy and wonder how 
she is. I know she must be pleased to 
know how contented and busy and hap- 
py I am. Bless her heart, I wish I 
could talk to her, and tell her all about 
my funny adventures and see her face 
light up. But I think of her a lot and 
that's almost as if I were talking to 
her, isn't it? 

Good night, Daddy, God bless you and 
keep you. 

Your son, 

Curtis. 



A NIGHT EXPEDITION 

Dear Daddy % 

The last time I wrote you, way back 

in V , I believe I told you I was 

a sort of observer with the Fifth. Ob- 
server? Ha! Now that we are back 
in winter billets I can afford to laugh, 
and you can, too. So laugh. 

In the interim I have done about 
everything except command a regiment. 
Now that it is all over I am still a very 
meek Second Lieutenant with so many 
bosses that I hardly dare move. But, 
hell, I have lived! 

At that I am still ordnance officer for 
the regiment, also wireless reconnois- 
sance officer, in charge of the regimental 
mess (lots of reconnoissance there, too) 
and general goat. But meanwhile I have 
been everything. 

It started one pitch-black night when 
54 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

I took Supply and Headquarters of the 
Second Battalion on a long hike to en- 
train for parts unknown. At the last 
minute they turned over a section or 
two from each battery so that I had 
about as much as a battery to pile out 
into the night with. 

It was glorious. You couldn't see a 
thing, and all you could hear were the 
wagons crashing off the invisible road, 
and my beloved mule-skinners raising 
their voices to Heaven in heroic Gar- 
gantuan curses. I didn't think I'd use 
that Battery Commander's whistle you 
gave me for some time, but I used it 
that night all right. And what did 
my heart good to hear above all was the 
old familiar rattle, rattle of artillery 
collars and trace chains as the teams 
snarled themselves around trees or just 
bolted on general principles. 

The Major who gave me the job said 
I had to break the record in getting 
there and in entraining, and by gosh! 
55 



i 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

we did it — with the odds and ends of 
the regiment. I even had a dentist 
whom I made help load mules and a 
doctor who drove a four-line hitch and 
swore better even than my wagon cor- 
poral. 

We were to start loading at four A. M. 
and we pulled in at three instead, after 
a long rest on the road, where my roll- 
ing-kitchen (after threatening to ex- 
plode and give away the whole position) 
served us hot coffee and steak. 

We had to wait while the outfit ahead 
finished entraining, but that gave me 
time to water the horses and put a few 
men under arrest and generally get 
things straightened out. 

Then we pinned back our ears and 
went to it. I loaded horses at five places 
at once, mules at another, materiel at 
two and rations and forage at another. 
There wasn't much racket and while 
it looked rather confused it really 
worked out surprisingly well. I think 
56 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

I must have walked miles that night 
with a long whip in one hand and a 
flashlight in the other (sort of modern 
Simon Legree) prodding men out of 
dark corners where they had dropped 
to snatch a few seconds' sleep. 

I recall having been decently civil to 
only one human being and that was the 
Major, who rode up to know how things 
were going. To him I smiled beatif- 
ically, waved my arm at the wild whirl 
dimly visible in the dark, and said 
everything was going very nicely. 

He told me I was a damn liar, also 
smiled, and, like a gentleman, went away 
again to let me work it out. As it 
turned out, we came under the wire a 
half hour ahead of the nearest outfit. 
We were able to serve out a piping hot 
breakfast, and let all hands turn in to 
get some sleep an hour before the train 
pulled out. 

My word, but wasn't it blissful to lie 
back on the gas masks and junk, and 
57 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

know that you had a good long rest 
ahead! Of course we had to pry horses 
apart at the stops, and all the usual 
things happened, but we didn't lose any- 
thing and came through in quite decent 
order. 

We detrained after dark again with 
a lot of new and rather nervous offi- 
cers standing around and telling us what 
to look out for. The reverse process 
was easier, of course, but I was held up 
at the end by an ungodly quantity of 
forage, which I had to invent transpor- 
tation for. This took time, so I broke 
no records this time. I relieved my 
mind on my orderly. He went off a 
bank backwards in the dark, horse on 
top, and I cursed out his supposedly 
dead body until he and the horse climbed 
up together, both rather subdued. 

Then we moved out, all a bit stiff and 

hungry, and hiked, and hiked, and 

hiked. We had a wooden guide with 

us. He looked quite imposing in occa- 

58 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

sional flashes of light — battered helmet, 
long drooping moustaches, jutting chin, 
calm profile, enormous horse, quite like 
one of the cuirassiers of Milhaud who 
went up the slope of Mt. St. Jean. But 
he knew absolutely nothing. 

Well, anyhow, we got there eventually, 

and Arnold W met us with a 

cane and an English accent and was 
rather vague about billets, and I raised 
my voice and cursed anew. And he was 
as charmingly imperturbable as he al- 
ways is, under fire or anywhere else, 
and eventually I found places for all 
the horses and all the mules and all the 
men and materiel, except myself. So 
I crawled into a fish wagon on to a sack 
of oats, and became blissfully uncon- 
scious. 

Now it's getting late in this little 
farm house, and the fire on the great 
hearth is dying down and the snow is 
sifting against the window outside, so 
I think I'd best close this letter. Any- 
59 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

way that last paragraph sort of sounds 
like the end of a chapter. 

I have three more chapters to write 
to bring me up to the present day. I 
got a lot of your letters in a batch and 
I have you covered up to your speech 
in an enlisted uniform and your 
entrance into the N. Y. Guard. Aren't 
you a nut — bless you. 

I have heard about the Tammany 
election — disgusting; and various ru- 
mors about Russia — equally disgusting. 
Otherwise I buy eggs, and drill recruits 
and men with Spanish American War 
service ribbons, and ride insane horses, 
and try to keep a fire going in wet wood, 
and wonder if all my friends are as hap- 
py and lucky and contented as I am. 

Good night, Daddy, and God bless you. 

Curtis. 



KING FOR A DAY 

Deae Dad: 

I am tickled to death because I have 
just gotten my old orderly, Pietras, 
back. After my transfer back to Head- 
quarters Company, I had to let him go, 
he being still in Supply. He came to me 
yesterday, however, and wanted to come 
back if I could make arrangements with 
his C. 0. This proved to be quite easy 
and now I have him, for the present 
at least. 

He is a tough-looking, saturnine thug, 
but he has never failed me and that is 
more than can be said of most dog- 
robbers. He is the man who went off 
the loading platform backward. He has 
risked his precious life following me 
in several places and, so far as I know, 
he is shrapnel proof. 

Also, and above all, he was with me 
61 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

during my brief reign of glory. That 
brings me easily and naturally to the 
yarn I promised to tell you, entitled: 

King for a Day. 

When I woke up on my sack of oats 
in the fish wagon, I was very cold and 
unhappy. It was still dark, but I de- 
cided to start an investigation of my 
surroundings. 

Behold a long line of covered wagons, 
mules and horses tied indiscriminately 
to the wheels, parked in what looked 
like the courtyard of a chateau. There 
was a fountain in the center where a 
badly damaged cupid distributed water 
in a bored sort of way over a moss- 
grown tank. 

Everything was very sad and dismal, 
and dew dripped mournfully from the 
tiled eaves of the barns and the great 
house. There was the usual French 
smell, pervaded by fresh manure, wood- 
smoke, and mould. No sound save the 
62 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

munching of tired animals, an occasional 
snore from the covered wagons, and 
the twitter of awakened birds. 

It occurred to me that my instructions 
to my non-coms had been detailed and 
explicit up to this point, but that neither 
they nor I had the slightest idea what 
we were supposed to do next. So I de- 
cided to have breakfast. 

A very sullen sergeant and a very 
sleepy corporal and a cook who, bless 
his heart, has never failed me, stumbled 
out in the dark, after I had roared to 
my heart's content. In a few minutes 
we had the old rolling kitchen smoking 
away and the whole company out feed- 
ing and watering and cleaning up. 

Luck was with me. With daylight 
came a nervous Major vainly searching 
for officers and wanting immediate ac- 
tion. This I gave him, also escort 
wagons ready for a long haul and sup- 
plied with rations and forage. 

With broad day there was much rush- 
63 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

ing about, many reprimands, and some 
confusion. But by that time I had a 
little column all ready to send out, and 
I had given my wagoners explicit in- 
structions just what to say and do under 
all the exigencies I could think of 
offhand at that hour of the morning. 
As it turned out, the way they acted 
on those instructions caused much 
amusement and some horror, but the 
result was quite happy. Whenever 
they meet mte on the road now they 
grin and let a four-line hitch climb the 
nearest tree while they salute as mule- 
skinners do not ordinarily salute. 

Exit the column, exit the Major, exit 
all our local aristocracy. But behold 
me, created by the aforesaid Major a 
quite unwilling monarch of all I sur- 
veyed. This included a French village, 
a battalion of hard-boiled artillery 
regulars, more or less, and God knows 
how many horses. I never did find out 
exactly, they changed so from day to 
64 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

day; but I eventually brought back five 
more than the battalion ever possessed. 

For the next two weeks this little 
town was mine to do with as I pleased — 
mine and a young man named Cholo- 

mendeley T % He went to Yale 

in 1914 and used to drive an ambulance 
up and down the Chemin des Dames. 
The fortunes of war found him in com- 
mand of the Headquarters Detachment 
at the time the column pulled out, and 
together we ran the town. 

We had Lieutenants under us, occa- 
sionally a Captain, but no one ever dis- 
puted our domain. Majors, Colonels, or 
Generals passed through, or stayed with 
us a few days, but they never interfered. 
Eventually one Major came down to take 
charge, but the week he was there he 
let us go ahead as before, and appeared 
only at mess to kid us for working so 
hard. Subsequently he said many 
friendly things of us which have helped 
in strange places. 

65 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

I shall never forget that first morn- 
ing I spent investigating the place in 
which I found myself. It was not, as 
I first thought, a chateau with its 
grounds, but a very famous stud farm. 
There was a large house, partly occu- 
pied by a very verbose French veterina- 
rian and his family. In the rest of it I 
promptly located a kitchen, an office for 

myself, and one for T . There 

was a huge court in back of the house, 
surrounded by stables, out-buildings, 
one dwelling house, and a riding hall. 

In these various places we very cozily 
located the horses and men of some of 
the batteries, the blacksmith's, Sadler's, 
and mechanic's shops and an assembly 
hall for the officers as well as the Bat- 
tery Headquarters. I picked a huge 
saddle-room for my supplies, store-room 
and commissary and bunked my non- 
coms and mechanics in there. 

In back of the first park was a huge 
66 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

open meadow, interspersed by clumps 
of trees and paddocks, running down 
to the river road, where were gravel 
pits and many graves. The whole was 
surrounded by a high stone wall with 
three lordly stone arches and wrought 
iron gates. 

Later T and I did much to this 

place and every once in a while he re- 
cites Kipling's "When I was a King 
and Mason, a builder — " We built 
gravel roads and graded them, we laid 
out gun-parks where there was no mud 
(the curse of most gun-parks). We 
put guards at the gates in little sentry- 
boxes. We built us huge watering 
troughs, where scores of horses frisked 
and whinnied and kicked each other 
thrice a day. We had camouflaged 
grain dumps and hay dumps and other 
dumps. We did everything we had ever 
read or heard of, and we had a gorgeous 
time doing it. Of course we made many 
67 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

mistakes, but we never made the same 
one twice, and it was better than seven- 
teen schools. 

By the end of the first day, T 

was chief of police and I was town 
mayor. I had established more or less 
friendly relations with a retired French 
Colonel of Infantry, and he had found 
him a guard-house, a prison and a soli- 
tary cell that was the joy of his heart. 

He took me down to view this cell 
the evening of the first day and I shall 
never forget my first view of the town 
itself. I had been roaring about the 
country all afternoon in a motorcycle 
establishing communication with the 
rail-end — and other places — and I had 
the consciousness of much work satis- 
factorily completed and my men com- 
fortably settled and eating a real man's 
meal. 

Our town was reached by a high stone 
bridge over a rushing river, by the 
border of which women still worked at 
68 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

their washing boards. The sun was 
going down in golden glory at the end 
of the street and it framed a high stone 
arch with a turret at one end. Beyond 
stretched the dark cobbled street, houses 
already shuttered up tight (as there 
was need) , and the home-going laborers 
ciippity clopped over the stones on their 
wooden sabots. Here and there a bent 
old crone with a staif carried a wrought 
iron lantern that went back surely to 
Henry of Navarre, or, better and more 
appropriately, to the Iron Duke of Lor- 
raine. Over all pealed the Angelus. 

The solitary cell was in the masonry 
of the arch itself. The thick oak door 
had three ponderous iron bolts and a 
little iron grating at the top. This was 
the only opening. There was a ring in 
the wall to fasten shackles to, and a 
string in the ceiling from which had 
formerly been suspended a loaf of 

bread — just out of reach. T 

mentioned with some regret that so far 
69 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

no prisoner was worthy this place, but 
that he had hopes. 

When he subsequently found a man 
perfectly worthy (as the court de- 
cided) , he used to stop in the arch every 
evening on his way home to dinner and 
listen to the man breathe! 

This sounds a bit unkind, but is 
thoroughly typical of us. We were so 
enormously happy at this our first 
touch of real responsibility that, when 
we were alone together, we acted like 
two perfect kids. Each thing we did 
during the day, and we were kept terrif- 
ically busy all through the three weeks, 
was the subject for endless discussion 
at night. We fought endlessly all the 
time except when we were fighting 
some one else, and then we worked to- 
gether as smoothly as two second-story 
men. 

I think that is enough for this letter. 
There is ever so much more to tell you 
about our little town and the people in 
70 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

it and how we ruled, on the whole, 
quite smoothly. There were affrays, 
and night alarms, and one big fire at 
which we all but tore a building down 
with our teeth, and many, many more. 
But it will all have to be another story. 
I have to go out now and do a little 
arresting (nothing serious) and it will 
be late before I get in, and I have a big 
radio detail out to-morrow, not to men- 
tion a stable to move. 

So for the present, good night and 
God bless you, Daddy. 

Yours, 

Curtis. 



A LITTLE STORY-BOOK TOWN 
Dear Dad: 

I have just come in from a long cold 

day on horseback and T and I 

are sitting by our cozy fire writing 
away. We have just been to a long 
conference at the Colonel's and taps has 
gone. I have to be up considerably 
before dawn and it'll be some cold, but 
I think I'll start another letter to you 
and finish later. 

I left off the "King for a Day" yarn 
after crossing the bridge into our little 
town. I hope I'll see it again some day, 
with its river winding around, its funny 
little high-backed bridges, and its old 
gray arches. It also had a wall and tur- 
rets where the pigeons wheeled all day, 
and an old stone church in the mossy 
town square where a silver tongued bell 
72 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

woke up the sentry we posted up there, 
once every so often. 

I used to see pictures of just such 
towns in my St Nicholas when I was 
a kid ; but I never in my wildest dreams 
ever thought I would have one all to 
myself to play with, — where I might 
ride out of a sunny morning on my coal 
black mare, a couple of orderlies clat- 
tering at my heels and the good folk 
taking off their hats and bowing as I 
cantered by. 

You will understand that for a space 
of time I became a cog in a machine 
and that I thereafter returned to my 
Kingdom — my little turretted story-book 
city, with its winding cobbled streets, 
its mossy, besainted watering troughs 
and its street corner shrines. 

After the second day, T and I 

combined forces and took the next best 
billet in town. It was with old Monsieur 
Gabriel, the white-haired schoolmaster. 
Bless his old heart, how he did love 
73 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

to prattle away to us, and how he did 
shut up and knuckle under when his 
wiry, energetic spouse appeared! To 
her we were a continual source of wild 
wonder. I explained to her at the very 
beginning that we were utter barba- 
rians and she thereafter considered us 
the greatest wags ever. She used to 
pop into our rooms at all sorts of im- 
possible times and nag away at us about 
our dirty feet and the dreadful doings 
of our orderlies and our uncouth habits 
of sitting on the edge of the bed, etc. 
Then she would rush out, wake up good 
Master Gabriel and repeat all our say- 
ings at the top of her lungs. You could 
hear them gabbing away and roaring 
with laughter as tickled as a couple of 
kids. 

I used to regale them both with long 
apocryphal yarns about Indians and 
buffaloes and gunmen and Woolworth 
buildings, in which I always made 

T or myself figure largely. They 

74 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

didn't believe much of it and I knew 
they didn't, but it helped my French 
wonderfully. 

They had a little dog which always 
rushed out to greet us yapping tre- 
mendously. Then it would wiggle and 
growl and hop around, wild for notice. 
Occasionally old Maitre Gabriel would 
meet us at the door, shaded tallow dip 
in hand, and drag us into the school- 
room. School keeps till eight in France 
and he would have a roomful of shining 
faced little rascals in black bombazine 
over-frocks and black wooden shoes. 
With us in the room he would orate at 
length in town-crier French, pointing 
out New York on the map, showing pic- 
tures of Brooklyn bridge and General 
Grant, and using us to point the moral 
and adorn the tale. 

All this with heat lightning going 

around the horizon, grumble, grumble, 

and the nights occasionally interrupted 

by ridiculously impossible things out of 

75 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

the pages of H. G. Wells or the Book 
of Revelations. I used to wake up and 
laugh, they were so much like a con- 
gregation of irritable folk heaving the 
contents of a hardware store at a cat on 
a back fence. The cat would go serene- 
ly buzzing along the fence, occasionally 
heaving back an extra large dish-pan, 
and all hands would be highly gratified 
and call it a night's work. 

You ought to hear the wind howl to- 
night. I'm getting nice and sleepy and 
I think I'll burrow on into my great big 
fat feather bed, open the window a 
crack, keep the tip of my nose out, and 
let her roar. For the present, with the 
wind howling down from the crystal- 
clear stars and the new moon shining 
on our snowy, hilly streets, good night. 

Curtis. 

P. S. : I add herewith a little Christ- 
mas message for all my friends such as 
I have sent out the last few years: 
76 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

The fire on the great open hearth is 
dying down. There is no sound save 
the snap of some dying coal and the 
distant grumbling on the horizon that is 
always with us. That and the singing 
of the wind on our great open hills are 
our daily orchestra. 

It is a good night to puff on your 
few remaining flakes of the weed and 
dream of your friends way bach in a 
land where everybody talks English and 
smokes good tobacco. 

This, my Christinas message to you, 
won't get there till long after your 
Yule log has burned out. But it is none 
the less sincere and heartfelt for all 
that. 

Know that we shall have made just 
as merry at the alien hearths as you 
at yours. We shall have dined just as 
heartily on our turkey or goose or bully 
beef with perhaps a little wild boar 
added thereto. And if the good old 
egg-nog be sadly lacking, there is always 
77 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

the merry amber vin du pays to cheer 
our hearts withal. 

Here's to you from the bottom of my 
heart y wherever you may be and what- 
ever style of clothes the chance of the 
moment may find you in. May they 
keep you as warm as mine and may you 
be just as glad to wear them. 

Here's a toast to us all and may we 
meet soon to swap fearful and wonder- 
ful tales of the year that has gone and 
may all the things that have happened 
to you be as interesting as the things 
that have happened to me. 

And now, clear and sweet in the frosty 
air, comes taps ringing down the windy 
hill — taps played as only they blow it 
ivho have bloivn more than good night. 
But the winter stars look down upon us 
snug beneath our warm tiled roofs and 
bid us a sparkling Good night. 

Good night to you and a Merry 
Christmas and a Happy New Year. 
78 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

"God's benison upon ye all 
That hold your heads on high, 
Whose hearts are right and swords 

are bright 
When Yule-tide cometh nigh." 



THE END OF THE KINGDOM 

Dear Dad: 

I was so busy with my little town, 
building a new water trough that 
would take care of fifty horses at once, 
repairing and adding to my stables, re- 
building a bridge that the Germans had 
blown up, and stretching out a smooth 
hard gravel road to the rail end, that it 
seemed almost a crime when orders 
came to pull out. 

That night there was great excite- 
ment. We were dining with the Majors, 
who had just returned, when down the 
narrow cobbled street came a blatting 
fire-call. I had been thinking that that 
was the only thing that hadn't happened 
to us, so naturally I was tickled as a 
kid. 

We first rushed out to the chateau to 
see if our beloved purlieus were un- 
80 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

touched. The fire wasn't there, so, 
leaving a trusty corporal and some of 
my wet wagoners with orders to douse 
any sparks that might land on the 
roofs, I went back to town. 

I met T charging up the street 

at the head of one of those old-fashioned 
hand pumps you see on the fire-insur- 
ance ads. — "Running with the old ma- 
chine." It seems some quick-witted 
thugs in D Battery who knew the loca- 
tion of the fire house had run there and 
snaked the machine out while the local 
French fire department were up-stairs 
putting on their uniforms. The uni- 
forms are rather ornate and apparently 
difficult to get into, for the men didn't 
arrive till twenty minutes later. They 
were wild at the loss of the machine, 
and I, of course, had to straighten the 
thing out. 

Above the crackle of the fire and the 

noise of T keeping the bucket 

line marshaled, I could hear the roars 
81 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

of laughter of the Majors as I stood 
there dripping wet, filthy with ashes, 
a French fire helmet perched on my 
head, explaining the situation to a 
droughty French Colonel. It would have 
been much harder if the local fire de- 
partment hadn't been palpably in such 
mortal terror lest we give them back 
their pump and make them work it. 

Then I went back to where four or 
five wildly enthusiastic members in good 
standing of Battery F, a Headquarters 
horseshoer, and the mess sergeant of 
E Battery were tearing the burning 
building apart. The fire was on the 
second floor and we had long ladders 
with which we poked the ceiling apart. 
Then we would duck our heads while 
a shower of planks, burning hay and 
tiles roared down upon us, and go at it 
again. (Hence the French fire helmet.) 
Meanwhile three ex-members of the 
New York fire department played water 
from the "old machine" upon us and 
82 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

the building impartially, and a crazy 
crowd on the roof tore it joyfully to 
pieces. Eventually one of them fell 
clear through, missing me by a foot. 
But of course he wasn't hurt (the only 
thing you can hurt an artilleryman with 
is a bath), and, as he remarked to me 
from the ground, the roof was "finish" 
(supposed to be French) and it was 
time to come down anyway. 

In the midst of all this, I heard cau- 
tious footsteps behind me, my helmet 
was lifted from my head, my campaign 
hat clapped on, and I turned just in time 
to see lurching frenziedly out the form 
of the fireman from whose head I had 
lifted it earlier in the evening. 

It was unceremonious, but I couldn't 
help laughing because, after all, I hadn't 
been very ceremonious either, and I 
was unquestionably getting his nice 
shiny helmet very dirty. Outside I 
could hear the crowd roaring with 
laughter and cheering him for his brav- 
83 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

ery in finally entering the building. He 
certainly had it on the rest of the fire 
department there. 

Well, eventually the fire was 
"feeneesh" and we all lined up by bat- 
tery and the French Colonel made a 
long speech thanking us on behalf of 
the town, and the fire department 
trundled their beloved machine off to 
bed. As a party, the episode left noth- 
ing to be desired, but it was rather hard 
on uniforms. My nice English trench 
coat has never been the same since. 

The next morning at "Boots and Sad- 
dles," I maneuvered so I could pull out 
my little command ahead this time, and 
it was very pleasant. We had no odds 
and ends to pick up for other people and 
we got off on a gorgeous morning with 
nothing on our minds save the rolling 
kitchen. Of course I had to find my 
way by a very weird map and I had to 
find forage and rations for the battalion 
84 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

somewhere on the road, but after our 
last hike this was easy pickings. 

All went well and we even had time 
to shoe three mules and a horse on the 
road. This French mud pulls shoes to 
beat the deuce and I took two or three 
"chemin ordinaire" to cut off distance. 
We found our supplies on a siding about 
noon and all we had to do was to un- 
scramble them and load up each outfit 
as it went by. 

This put us at the tail of the column, 
however, and we (that is, Headquarters 
and Supply, of which they left me in 
charge) were quartered five miles far- 
ther ahead than any other organization. 
I thought we never would get there, up 
the most terrific hills ever. I wore out 
my nice pig-skin "persuader" on two 
teams of mules which I had to person- 
ally conduct up one hill. As you know, 
when a mule is "finish" he's finish and 
it takes a lot of arguing to convince him 
85 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

otherwise. I found my old border vo- 
cabulary coming back to me intact and 
we eventually pulled into town. 

It was just getting dark and I was 
looking forward to quick billeting, a 
quick meal and bed. But that was not 
to be, for, as we pulled up in the main 
street, the old Fourth of July stuff 
started in the sky and every inhabitant 
disappeared in the cellar of his house. 

Imagine the situation — a whole col- 
umn in the open, and dust spitting 
all around you. It was bad enough for 
the men, but mules are valuable. I had 
two more than I started with and I 
wanted to finish with that record. So 
I gave the command to unhitch and lead 
into the nearest doorway. This caused 
confusion later, but it effectually 
cleared the street. Then I got the old 
rolling kitchen under cover, started a 
meal cooking, and went out to look for 
billets for the men. 

It was the funniest thing you ever 
86 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

saw. I would knock on a door, hammer 
my stick to pieces, and eventually it 
would be opened a crack, always by a 
woman. "Where was the 'patron'?" 
"In the 'cave/ of course, ga va sans 
direr "Could I see him?" "Well, per- 
haps." Then the "patron" would 
stumble out of some subterranean grot- 
to way below and I would ask him for 
"places" for the number of "hommes" 
and "chevaux" printed on his door. 

Then in the midst of all this 
"Trrrrrrrrrrp !" in the sky, Roman 
candles and sky-rockets and set pieces, 
and then bom, bom, bouie, and then a 
roar that shook the cobbles in the street. 
At the first crack the door would slam 
shut and you could hear the "patron" 
crashing back down into his cave. It 
was so darned ridiculous I couldn't help 
laughing, but at the same time it was 
vastly annoying because I wanted those 
men to get a good night's sleep. 

Finally Arnold W came to my 

87 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

assistance and between us we found 
enough places for everybody. I shall 
never forget the sight of him wandering 
in a bored sort of way down the street, 
swinging his stick and appearing in 
every particular like a country gentle- 
man who had you out for the week 
end and took pardonable pride in show- 
ing you over his pet dairy farm. 

As a matter of fact, half our labor 
was wasted, for my wagoners insisted on 
sleeping in their escort wagons. Either 
the Fourth of July stuff failed utterly 
to impress them, or they cherished the 
belief that army canvas will stop any- 
thing. As a matter of fact, it will stop 
shrapnel, even when it doesn't keep out 
rain. I suppose the shrapnel bounces 
and the rain doesn't. 

For myself and T I found bully 

billets just over the stable in which I 
had the "Cuisine Roulant." It was a 
typical French guest room, which, for 
any one who has been over here, means 
88 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

a lot. There is no hut so poor it can't 
produce one best room, with a feather 
bed, and pictures of the family, and 
funeral wreaths of the departed. Most 
of the wreaths nowadays bear the date 
1916 or 1917 and the inscription 
"Tombe pour la patrie." 

This room had two splendid feather 
beds and a fireplace and we soon had a 
roaring fire going. After going out 
to see how Pietras and the mare were 
faring (they nearly always slept and 
ate together and that is no reflection on 
Pietras), I turned in and made myself 
comfortable and waited for H . 

E. F. H , Esquire, certainly de- 
serves a paragraph to himself. He is a 
little insignificant tike from California 
with a funny wry smile, fearless blue 
eyes and a stubby red moustache. His 
father is a wealthy salmon packer or 
something and he came into the service, 
as so many of our best officers over here 
have come, by way of the American Am- 
89 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

bulance. He hasn't any Croix de Guerre 
(as most of the good ambulance men 
have), but he has been under fire many 
times and on one momentous night, at a 
place called Verdun, he kept the road 
cleared of crazy artillery horses and sent 
cannon after cannon loaded with H. E. 
down a road that changed its shape 
every minute under the German 150's. 
How he happened to be hauling H. E.'s 
instead of Grandes Blesses is another 
story which there is no space for here; 
but it is thoroughly typical of the choice 
aggregation over here we have picked 
up to fill vacancies, who are short on 
drill, long on nerve and blissfully igno- 
rant of any precedents about anything. 

I first saw H when the Major 

on one of the flying trips decided I 
needed another assistant and turned 
him over to me. I have had, since then, 
as many as seven lieutenants under me 

doing various things, but H was 

the best of the lot. That day I put him 
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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

on the wood detail, that being the thing 
that was bothering me most. I had just 
come back the day before from an all- 
day hike to the Foret de — — -, our only 
source of wood (and it is cold as the 
devil in that part of France). I had 
had two mule teams mired, broken a 
wagon tongue and sworn myself hoarse 
getting three loads back to the battalion. 
So I grinned to myself when I started 

H — off with four teams at five in 

the morning. 

But the wood wagon drifted in 
spaced just right and saved our necks, 

and H himself showed up with 

the last one at dusk riding on the box 
and driving the mules. As he pulled 
up, his horse, which was tied to the tail- 
gate of the wagon, gave a tired moan, 
lay down on the ground and passed out 
cold. Never shall I forget the sight of 

H , dirty, cold, tired, with his steel 

helmet pulled down over his eyes and 

that funny wry smile just showing 

91 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

underneath. It appealed to my sense of 
humor, so I left him on the wood detail 
the rest of the time we spent there. 

Picture me now, sitting in front of my 

fire waiting for H . I had left 

him behind with two freight-cars of 
junk I was sending on ahead by rail 
with my sergeant, for whom it was a 
punishment, and a corporal, for whom 

it was a disgrace. For H , of 

course, it was just part of an officer's 
job, as I explained to him at the time. 
I shan't forget his expression then, 
either. 

He had the same expression when he 
finally stumbled up into the room about 
ten. It seemed he had run into about 
the same party we had, only the ser- 
geant and the corporal mumbled some- 
thing about saving the horses and beat 
it to a "cave" and left him alone with 
his assorted junk. 

The two remaining days of our hike 
were not particularly eventful. I re- 
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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

member one delightful little town we 
stopped at where I got into a terrible 
fight over beef and bread. That was 
the same nigr.t some of my most lordly- 
superiors (the "big oils" the French 
call them) appeared suddenly, gave me 
a champagne dinner and held a mock 
trial at which I, for once, was not the 
goat, and which I enjoyed hugely. 
Afterwards the beef and bread situa- 
tion descended suddenly and clutched 
me by the throat, but in the interim I 
had time to observe the town. 

It was much neater than the aver- 
age — three real mansions — and was all 
cut up by funny little canals, through 
which ran wonderful cold, clear green 
water. The people were charmingly 
hospitable and when the old red guidon 
led the way out next morning the whole 
town turned out to wave us "la bonne 
chance." 

And now we were come into a land of 
whale-backed hills and long undulating 
93 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

downs, very much like Sussex. These 
people, too, are shepherds and the gray- 
brown of the treeless swales is broken 
ever and anon by the dirty white of 
many sheep. And from afar you hear, 
even above the sighing of the wind 
which blows and blows and never ceases, 
the bleating and baaing of the flock. 
The villages are little and old and gray, 
and seem to huddle away from the wind 
in little hollows, out of which you can 
see only the tall church spire rising 
against the cold blue sky. 

It was just such a picture that greeted 
us as we drew near the place which 
the map said was Regimental Head- 
quarters for the winter. One by one 
the various batteries had trailed off to 
their respective villages and I was now 
left alone with the Supply Headquarters 

detachments. T had been sent on 

a wild tear across half France (his sub- 
sequent story merits a separate yarn 

sometime) . H was riding at the 

tail of the column watching sick ani- 
94 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

mals, and I was all by myself at the 
head as we topped the last rise. 

There it lay, clear in the rays of the 
setting run, a shining stream running 
through it, bordered by a few Lombardy 
poplars and the high-backed brown 
hills sheltering it warm and cozy from 
the everlasting wind. And on the wings 
of the evening came full and distinct the 
blare of our good old regimental band. 
Lord, how long had it been since I had 
heard that band? Ages ago it seemed, 

way back in good old , before I 

started on my mad career of crime. 
Well, it was good to get back to civiliza- 
tion after all. As my tired column 
strung out down the last slope, the 
music came to us distinctly and this 
is what they were playing: 

"It's a long, long trail a-winding 
To the land of our dreams, 
Where the nightingale is singing 

And a white moon beams. 
It's a long, long night a-awaiting 
Till our dreams all come true, 
To the day when I'll be going 
Down the long, long trail with you. 
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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

We pulled across a high stone-arched 
bridge, past a carved stone watering- 
trough in which ducks splashed about, 
up a little rise and into the public 
square. I held my right arm high above 
my head. "Hoooalt" — the long drawn 
out call echoed in the square and then 
re-echoed as it passed down the line to 
where the tail of the column was still 
descending the last hill. I raised my 
hand again, brought it down to my 
side, the tired men slid off their horses 
and my reign as king was over. 

The Adjutant looked up from his 
papers impatiently. "Wheeler? Oh 
yes, I remember. Glad to see you back 
with us again. Let's see, what were 
you with? Supply? By George, that's 
right. I'd forgotten. Funny it escaped 
my mind and I just assigned another 
man to that job. Well, you're in Head- 
quarters now, some kind of paper work 
I believe. Bring anybody with you? 
96 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

Well, turn them over to their proper 
commands and I'll try and find you some 
sort of billets, — pretty crowded just 
now. Better report to your command- 
ing officer right away. I think he has 
a lot of letters for you to censor. What 
was that you said, Sergeant? Oh, yes, 
and you're to stand all calls for the time 
being, — Junior Officer, you know. Good- 
by." 

And as I walked out into the darken- 
ing square to my erstwhile command, 
I thought of the old, old story of the 
dog and the Second Lieutenant and I 
smiled to myself. I think under my tin 
hat I must have looked very much as 

H did when I left him with the 

freight cars. 

"Bang" right between the eyes — and 
just exactly what I needed. 

Curtis. 



CHRISTMAS IN FRANCE 

Dear Daddy: 

This morning at reveille the band 
marched through the snowy streets 
playing old Christmas carols and it was 
like some of the old medieval pictures. 
We look rather medieval now, anyway, 
in our hip boots and helmets, and, in- 
stead of campaign hats, the men wear 
a sort of Robin Hood bonnet that pulls 
down over the ears exactly like the old 
prints. 

I dressed in front of a roaring fire 

which my man G made and 

called in the three little motherless 
daughters of my host. I had got dolls 
for them the day before and brought 
the package back on the pommel of my 
saddle through two-foot drifts. They 
stood in front of me like a flight of 
steps, short, shorter, shortest, mouths 
98 






LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

and eyes wide open as the packages 
were handed out. The dolls were rather 
expensive and did all the things a well- 
disposed doll is supposed to do and I 
awaited the opening of the packages 
with pleased expectancy. The littlest 
one opened hers first and it was a little 
Red Cross nurse and the results were 
amply gratifying. She giggled and 
prattled to the others and thanked me 
very prettily in her funny patois and 
ended with an enormous courtesy, in the 
midst of which she sat flat on the floor. 
But when the older girls opened their 
boxes they didn't say anything at all. 
They just hugged the dolls and looked 
at each other for a while and their eyes 
filled with tears. Then they looked at 
me and smiled a little and cried a little. 
The two dolls were dressed in the native 
costumes of Alsace and of Lorraine. 
Finally the oldest one, who looks a good 
deal like the stained glass picture of 
Joan of Arc in the village church, 
99 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

thanked me in rather trembling French 
and they filed out solemnly to show their 
presents to the gran* mere. 

I believe I enclosed in one of my let- 
ters to you a little Christmas message 
to send to as many of my friends as 
you could find addresses for. My antici- 
pations were all fulfilled. Christmas 
day was a bright clear day with the 
sun shining down on the old, old houses 
with their snowy roofs and our wind- 
ing hilly streets. It was just cold 
enough to make every one's nose and 
cheeks red and to put a snap in your 
step and a sparkle in your eyes. 

We've been working pretty hard and 
there was enough to do Christmas morn- 
ing so that when the young men began 
to troop into the mess shacks they had 
glorious appetites. I postponed the 
grand meal at the Officer's Mess to 
evening as we were all eating with our 
organization at noon. 

I can tell you the men fared well, — 
100 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

turkey and ham and baked potatoes and 
pumpkin and mince pie. 

The Colonel found time to get to every 
mess and make them a little speech, and 
a lot of the tough old bucks, with three 
hitches and their share in the guard- 
house, weren't ashamed to sniff a couple 
of times. He said that he was afraid 
some of them might be feeling a little 
lonely this day when they compared it 
with Christmas in the past, and he 
didn't blame them. But he wanted them 
to remember that the regiment was 
their friend and it was no mean friend 
to have. The Fifth Field Artillery has 
been a good friend to legions of mighty 
fine soldiers for many, many genera- 
tions. Furthermore, a man could have 
just as many friends in the regiment 
as he wanted to make, for we were all 
by ourselves here and we must stick 
together. There were a few homely 
pieces of advice, and then he closed by 
asking each man to resolve to so con- 
101 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

duct himself in the coming year that 
it would not be necessary for hundreds 
of thousands of boys now happily at 
home or near home to spend such 
another Christmas as this in France 
next year. 

I don't know what this sounds like 
to you, but the way it was said and the 
tone of voice gave it a very ringing 
quality. The Colonel is a fine looking 
man, clean-cut and wiry and hawk- 
nosed, and he has held unquestioned 
command over men longer than most of 
the officers you see. 

I don't know whether I have said 
much about the men in this regiment. 
As you know, it has been a picked regi- 
ment for many years and the men have 
that look. They are practically all varia- 
tions of one consolidated type. As I 
watched them during the Coloners talk 
I thought to myself that I had never 
before seen so many faces take and re- 
102 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

fleet the expression of one face. That, 
it seems to me, is leadership. 

In the afternoon we all trooped into 
the stained gloom of the village church. 
And there, lo, a real American Christ- 
mas tree, towering into the chancel 
and laden with toys. Our red-faced 
old Band Sergeant was there in all his 
glory and the band blatted for all it is 
worth: Carol, Carol Christmas^ and 
Hark the Herald Angels, and It Came 
Upon the Midnight Clear, 

Before the tree stood one of our 
busiest Lieutenants dressed in a French 
improvisation of the good St. Nicholas. 
Before him huddled scores and scores of 
fat little red-cheeked kiddies marshaled 
by a couple of bustling, smiling Sisters. 
Backed by our good old Methodist Chap- 
lain, with his long white beard, and the 
keen-faced, high-bred old cure, with his 
long black cassock (mutually unintel- 
ligible, but friendly) , he made the kid- 
103 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

dies a speech in his Fontainebleau 
French and then called them up one by 
one. 

Wars may come and wars may go, 
but these kiddies took me back to the 
Christmas trees we used to have in the 
little church at Westerleigh, They are 
all the same. Here the women wore 
black and there was no Frenchman in 
the church between the ages of fifty and 
eighteen; but the kiddies crowed and 
giggled or howled or shouted according 
to age and sex, and staggered even- 
tually home with their arms full of toys 
and goodies, as happy as any kids any- 
where else, I'll be bound. 

I know the people of this town proba- 
bly better than any other officer through 
my various jobs and my smattering of 
French, and I think I can truthfully say 
that the Entente Cordiale has received 
a boost in this little corner of France 
that it would take a lot to shake. 

After the trees, there was a band con- 
104 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

cert in the square ending in a blare of 
glory, just at dusk, with The Star Span- 
gled Banner and Mr. Rouget de L'Isle's 
masterpiece. I should like to paint for 
you the picture, but you can imagine it 
as it must have looked. There was the 
sun going down behind the black church 
spire, the shadows on the hills around 
all turning indigo and lavender against 
the snow, the crowd of people about the 
square, kiddies dancing and playing on 
the outskirts, women in the center, 
hands under their shawls for warmth, 
babies in wooden sabots at their skirts, 
French soldiers, "en permission," mostly 
infantry, with here and there the rakish 
blue tam-o'-shanter of a Chasseur Alpin 
or the red fez and crescent of a Chasseur 
d'Afrique, and, wandering through it 
all, benevolent, kindly, care-free, that 
greatest institution of modern times — 
the American buck private. With his 
hands in his pockets, jingling bokoo 
Frankies, a Christmas quid in his cheek 
105 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

and a Christmas breath floating mist- 
ily out into the frosty air, no Roman em- 
peror has anything on him. He has a 
nod and a bong joo for everybody and 
he gets a smile in return, from the with- 
ered old gran* mere in the white cap and 
shawl to the flaxen haired lassie with 
the cold blue eyes and the warm white 
smile and the cameo features and the 
husky shoulders and legs, who rides by 
sitting sidewise on a huge white horse, 
her little sabots stuck straight out in 
front of her and her nose in the air. 

The band was still going to it when I 
left to keep an appointment to tea. 

Monsieur M had very kindly 

asked me in to have a Christmas 
cake with him and I was anxious 
to see what a real decent better 
class French home would be like. Mon- 
sieur M is now, like many other 

people in this town, a refugee from fur- 
ther north, but with a difference. He 
lives with a relative — chez lui, so to 
106 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

speak, and is therefore a sort of king of 
the refugees. Before the war he was a 
big contractor at a place which is now 
as historic as Little Round Top, and he 
still has a very considerable fortune left 
to help his townspeople. 

I found them all sitting around the 
fire waiting for me— two kids, the old 
gran* mere, the man himself and his lit- 
tle wren of a wife. He represents an en- 
tirely different class of Frenchman from 
the type around here (such as my pres- 
ent host). He has the long, straight, 
high-bridged nose, the broad forehead, 
the clear, wide-open eyes, the flexible 
expressive hands, that we have learned 
to recognize as the true French type at 
its best. 

It was all quite formal at first. Then 
we sat down, there was a formal talk 
and the tea began. It consisted, first, of 
black pudding, or blood sausage. And 
you don't know what a relief it was to 
be with people who knew enough to be 
107 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

formal once in a while. I bowed and 
mine host bowed and his little wife 
smiled at me and pulled up a chair for 
me at the table. Then there were Lor- 
raine tarts and honey cakes and a kind 
of light biscuit and some old, old cob- 
webby bottles full of a vin that never 
grew in this pays or this generation. 
After this was over mine host brought 
forth a jug of Mirabelle, which is a very 
delightful cordial, made from prunes, 
and we fell to talking about everything. 
It was a delight to talk with these 
people, their accent was clear as a bell 
and as easy to understand as English. 
They were so quick and responsive that, 
after those country people, it was like 
talking to a different race. 

Moreover and above all, my bearded 
Hermes did not seize this opportunity to 
complain to me of the doings of some of 
my men or the evil habits of my horses. 
Instead he talked of Clemenceau, and 
108 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

the situation in Italy, and the move- 
ments of troops he himself had seen, and 
what his friend who is in the Assembly- 
said about some one else in the Assembly 
who is not his friend, and so forth. And 
the little lady asked me questions about 
America, what Christmas was like there, 
and were my parents living, and was I 
married, and would I like the recipe for 
the honey cake, and what did the crossed 
guns on my collar mean, and was the 
American helmet as comfortable as the 
French casque, and would there really 
be five million Americans here by June ! 
The girl was really a young lady and 
it was beneath her dignity to talk to a 
sous-lieutenant, but there were some 
things she wanted to know. One was, 
Are American girls really all beautiful, 
besides being fabulously wealthy? An- 
other was, How long had I been talking 
French and did I find it difficult to un- 
derstand the patois of these people here? 
109 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

And the last was a wish that I had been 
able to visit them in their real home 
"davant la guerre/' Amen. 

The boy, a thick-set youngster with a 
big square head and quick-witted eyes, 
opened up last, but was full of confi- 
dences about a friend of his who was a 
sous-officer in the Blue Devils. And he 
described with great interest the blow- 
ing up of their home, and the eclats of 
the obus, and how the Turcos cheered as 
they ran, and what knives they carried, 
and what he was going to be after he had 
gone to St. Cyr, and how di*6le it was to 
watch the American soldats helping the 
French farmers kill their cochons. 

It was all very pleasant and cozy and 
homelike and I shouldn't have missed it 
for a great deal. It made one feel quite 
like a gentleman again instead of a com- 
bination of Nero, Uriah Heep and Gyp 
the Blood. And the strange part of it 
all, I mused to myself as I plowed home 
110 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

in the night, was that a week before this 
same man had gone for one of our Bat- 
tery Commanders with a long sharp 
knife, and this call of mine was the last 
stage of a rather difficult patching-up 
process. It is all a question of under- 
standing, I reckon. 

That night, at the Officers' Mess, it 
was very gay indeed. The walls were 
gay with banners and lanterns and 
Christmas greens. The Colonel's room 
sported the regimental standard and the 
colors crossed above a fireplace, which 
roared a cheerful Yule-tide warmth. 
The waiters wore white coats and aprons 
and jaunty cooks' caps and the table- 
cloths and cutlery shone spotless. The 
cook presided over a spotless kitchen, 
a grin on his face, and from it issued 
sugar-cured ham, crisp green salad, huge 
crisp smoking turkeys, fried sweet yams, 
stacks of flaky pumpkin and mince pies 
and piles of cakes. To top it all, we had 
111 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

fine juicy wild-boar steak and real Am- 
erican coffee from the States. We ate 
and ate and ate. 

Suddenly, every one burst into song. 
The Colonel and the Battery Command- 
er came in from the other room and it 
was such a scene as Kipling describes 
when he talks about the mess-nights of 
the White Hussars. 

We sang some Christmas songs and 
we sang some college songs. We sang 
the famous epic which begins "A lady 
in jail, yes a lady in jail, with her face 
turned to the wall." We sang Integer 
Vitae and Pack Up Your Troubles and 
Abduhl did Abul bul Emir and God 
Help Kaiser Bill and The Long, Long 
Trail. Then, as a final splurge, we all 
stood up and I started them off on The 
Battery Mule and The Red Guidon. As 
the last notes of that died away, here 
was the General, who was a guest of 

Colonel A , calling for another 

song. And what should that be but our 
112 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 

own song, the Fifth Field Artillery song 
The Caissons. 

The General led it, as was his right, 
for was not he, too, an old Battery Com- 
mander of the Fifth? So for a minute 
rank was forgotten and we were all just 
brothers in the oldest and best regiment 
in the service. And I dare say the shade 
of our first Battery Commander, Alex- 
ander Hamilton, must have looked down 
upon us and smiled as we marched down 
the snowy street still singing, "And 
those caissons go rolling along, Keep 
them rolling, And those caissons go rol- 
ling along." 

So ended a very happy Christmas 
for the Fifth Field Artillery. There 
was sadness in it, of course, for we're 
a long way from home and we hope to 
go much farther before they sound off 
"Dismiss." But me! I would change 
places with no man on earth and you 
wouldn't have me, would you, Daddy? 

I got your box of Christmas things 
113 



LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN SOLDIER 



and the presents of and 



Bless you, Daddy, and thank them for 
me. 

Happy New Year, Daddy, 

Curtis. 



the END 



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